SXSW Synch or Swim Panel

Another SXSW is over with great reports coming out of Austin, Texas after the 2011 installment of the popular music conference and showcase event.
One of the highlights of the 2010 event was the 'Synch or Swim' panel moderated by
Steven Scharf, President of Steven Scharf Entertainment moderated the SXSW 2010 Music panel Synch or Swim: Keeping Your Head Above Water. Also on the panel were Rachel Levy, Senior VP Motion Picture Music at The Weinstein Company, Music Supervisor Chris Mollere from Fusion Music Supervision, Theresa Notartomaso, Music Supervisor at Headroom Digital Audio and Mark Wike President of Wike Music Ltd.
This panel was conveniently recorded and uploaded as a podcast and is full of great insights on how to get your submissions heard by Supervisors and Licensors.
Click the link to listen.
PODCAST

Facelift!

We're excited to announce we've undergone a facelift!

We've tweaked the interface to improve the way you search for music supervisors or browse projects.

Search simplified: Now you can just enter either a project, a music supervisor or even a company name to search into the same search box and get accurate results. Better yet, you won't be doing a blind search or come up empty-handed when performing a search, because we've added a handy, new and improved auto-complete functionality where you can see suggested results while typing.

Better browsing: Sometimes you may not know who you want to search for, so we've added an ability to easily browse all projects or music supervisors. Just click onto the category you want to browse for on the top left once logged into the site.

Stay tuned and check back as we post some more details on this update on this blog.

It's A Singles Market

Gone are the times when entire albums could be made consisting only of 1-2 hits with the rest being so-called "fillers" or "album tracks". With services like iTunes, Rhapsody, Napster, and many others audiences are able to zoom in and download only those songs that they like.

This, in turn, is forcing artists to rethink how they should be releasing their albums. Artists can't bet on buyers anymore to just believe their entire album will sell if they consist of just 1 good song. Artists can no longer afford to "save" material for later album releases to distribute the "good" songs over a number of albums.

That's not to say that people won't still purchase entire albums, but it's fair to say that if artists want audiences to shell out cash for an entire album these days, they'll have to produce a larger share of hit songs on an entire album. It'll force artist not to be content with album tracks anymore.

We can also see the importance of a "singles" market in the sync and licensing space. Music Supervisor Julia Michels who's selected music for major movies such as 'Sex and the City' and 'The Devil Prada' says that "It's a downloader's market. The iTunes top 10 matters as much as Billboard. Labels are using film and television in lieu of radio play, and we're constantly being pitched the single."

This goes to show just how important the single's market is. Film, TV, Video Games and other new media are contributing to the trend of forcing artists to stay focused and create strong material for their entire albums.

To Tweet or Not to Tweet?

And yes, it's that time of the year when we discuss social media. And, yes, people are always discussing social media. But there just happens to be a reason for that: social media is quintessential for any aspiring artist. Everyone knows the drill by now, everyone has Facebook accounts, MySpace profiles and YouTube channels, some praise them as the best ways to get noticed, while others doubt their effectiveness in spreading information to such large groups.

Today is the day of Twitter. If you're already tweeting, congrats, if not, then hurry up and get busy, because it has just been proven that Twitter will sell you more records. A recent marketing study has shown that more Twitter users listen to online radio or watch online videos than non-Twitter net surfers, and, more significantly, the study has also found that, while 23% of non-tweeting music fans bought CD's and 16% bought digital albums, the tweeting ones outrank them with levels of 33 and 34 percent.

It's a risk-free contraption that will help you reel in great benefits and, from now on, one of the big players of the new media. People like to be informed, individualized and given more time, which is exactly what Twitter does and exactly why it will do the trick for musicians. So,remember...keep a wireless laptop next to those musical instruments in your family's garage; your fans have to know you in order to buy you.

Ad Agencies Look For Music From Artists Directly

I'm sure, by now, most of you know about Natasha Bedingfield's song, "Unwritten", and how it was successfully used in global P&G advertising campaigns for its female-focused shampoo brand, Pantene. You might also be interested in knowing that the ad agency which came up with this music-commercial duet is also responsible for a brilliant music placement move: calling for artist submissions to decide which song should go along with their ads.

Pantene and Revlon both benefited from this table-turning technique, as their campaigns got an extra hand from some fine tunes of some otherwise invisible musicians. Rosie Golan is a New York singer/songwriter whose song "Shine" was selected for Pantene out of the 400 tracks the agency received, because the marketing masterminds behind this endeavor were convinced it delivered the female empowerment message they desired. This practically kicked off her career, as, after providing the background for the shampoo ad, her song stirred up some attention and got her on iTunes, One Tree Hill and even on the album market with a self-produced record.

When we read about this we were pleasantly surprised to see that the ad business is really acknowledging the potential of unknown artists and more than delighted to spot an opportunity to hit the jackpot for musicians themselves; similar to MTV's initiative of opening Rock Band appearances for the masses, it's a direct, honest and well-targeted approach that could just help you land a more than decent placement contract out of nowhere and go everywhere from there, so...watch out for who's calling, you might be able to answer.

Oh and here's Natasha Bedingfields song for those who like the song and video:

Creative Techniques To Market Your Music

You've probably never heard of a band called 'I Fight Dragons'. Figures, since they've only been around for six months. While browsing around trying to spot some promising new music, this little gig caught our eye. Why? To put it bluntly, because they're aces in self-marketing. These guys are getting 200 new fans on board every week due to a very simple technique: they offer their latest album for free if you sign up for their mailing list and then they keep you hooked with some free tunes almost every week.

What, for free? How appalling, you might think. All that work and they just give it up for nothing. That is where you're wrong; they're giving it up for attention, which, at least in my book, is a pretty fair trade. The truth is that it doesn't really help if you've composed a masterpiece of musical art if no one knows about it and, in today's spider web of gazillions of bands and tracks and MySpace pages and Twitter tweets, it's getting harder and harder to make people listen.

We just don't have the patience anymore to go on an Internet wild goose chase and hope to find some interesting music samples, so musicians have to know how to get to us. 'I Fight Dragons' got a loyal fan base, fans got to save some effort and it's a safe bet that those who truly like the music will also go to concerts or buy albums. A lot of established and emerging artists could learn a thing or two from them. This doesn't mean that you should give up your entire repertoire and stop aspiring to actually make money out of music; it simply shows, once more, that a "what you see is what you get" approach might work better than a "catch me if you can" one.

You may also want to check out this interview posted by 'Music Think Tank' in a talk with 'I fight Dragons' band leader Brian Mazzaferri on this very topic.

Get Your Music on Video Games - Thank you MTV!

Ok, which aspiring artist hasn’t dreamed of being idolized by millions of Guitar Hero and Rock Band fans around the world? Well, among all the digital turmoil and whimsical inventions (see JamLegend) of these music performance games, MTV seems to be promising to make your fantasy quite real, while also promising to get a better grasp of the Internet’s potential.

As it turns out, MTV is opening up the gates for its Rock Band franchise online, allowing emerging bands and singers to rock their way through their fleet of music supervisors and get an entry into the hall of video game fame. The platform enables you to submit pieces, edit them, mix them up and have them reviewed for acceptance by their experts. How’s that for quick and easy! You upload and they listen and then maybe, just maybe, you might get your music placed into their game. Of course, there will be thousands of competitors, but, it’s a worthy shot. Congrats, MTV, it’s about time someone upped the game for the unknown rockers out there.

Billboard recently covered the online track upload program here.

The CD is Dead: Long Live The CD

It is an overall impression that music nowadays flows mostly through filesharing, download sites, podcasts and digital music stores, while record labels and their CD's are like dinosaurs soon to be extinct. Well, as it turns out, we need a reality check. This week, Music Ally and its partner research company, The Leading Question, released some statistics that prove the contrary. Apparently, 73% of all those who purchase music prefer to buy CD's instead of digital tracks, while many users of Napster and other similar services are actually more inclined to go get their hands on an album after they've listened to the music on the net.

What does this tell us? Two vital facts: digitalising music does not mean giving it away for free and it does not imply the disappearance of all that traditional "buy a record, play it a party, go see the band" kind of thing. Yes, the Internet is THE major channel, but we shouldn't overlook "the real deal", either. Instead, we should try looking at the Web as a complementary means of getting attention and not as a big fish that swallowed the smaller one. There is still hope for record labels and for bands to keep that more personal, physical connection with their buyers/fans. So fear not, all you musicians out there, you still have a chance of bagging a platinum disc.

Our News Blog

Our new blog is viewable at http://blog.musicsupervisorguide.com/

This is where we'll drop off interesting news, comments or updates in the world of music in movies, tv, ads or games and also of course music supervisors. Completely unorganized and never timely, but hopefully still interesting! Leave us a comment - we love to hear from you.

Don't forget to check out our official site at MusicSupervisorGuide.com for music supervisor details as well as new articles and interviews.